


The Princess and the Healer

by freddiejoey



Category: Arthur of the Britons
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-31
Updated: 2011-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-23 06:54:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/247435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freddiejoey/pseuds/freddiejoey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark's little sister falls in love</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Princess and the Healer

Part One

“You’ve been to visit my mother.” Mark bursts into the longhouse without any preliminaries, a veritable dynamic force of nature. “And greetings to you too Mark” says Arthur dryly, from where he is seated at the table breaking his fast with Kai. “Yes, yes, yes.” Mark is obviously impatient and highly excited. “Well, its clearly your fault that this has happened – you’ve awakened some sort of dormant family feeling in her - and now she wants to come down to Cornwall visiting and that’s not even the worst of it. Arthur, I need your help.” Kai gives a grunt of laughter and crunches into a pear. ‘Why do those words sound familiar?” Arthur gives his brother an amused glance and turns back to Mark. “For God’s sake, sit down, pour yourself some mead, eat something and stop rambling. Now, what exactly is this extremely irksome problem?”

Mark quickly swills a cup of mead and wolfs down an oatcake. “The problem, my dear Arthur, is that my mother is headed this way - actually no, that’s not exactly the problem- my mother I can tolerate in limited doses. The problem is that she is bringing Braith with her.” Kai energetically devours another pear. “What’s the matter with that? She is your sister.” Mark looks infuriated. “Half-sister. My father could never have whelped such a finicky girl-child. Always turning her nose up and complaining. Your longhouse is too dirty Mark. Why do you drink like a pig Mark? Don’t spit your food Mark. It’s intolerable.” Arthur smiles. “I don’t know. She was perfectly sweet-tempered when I was up north.” Mark sneers. “On her best behaviour no doubt. Anyway, this is how you can help me – and help me you must. Lia is as much your aunt as she is my mother.” Arthur frowns as he attempts and fails to follow the path of Mark’s logic. Kai merely shrugs. He is beginning to enjoy himself. “When they ride through here in a few days time, you can offer to keep Braith here for a visit – get her off my hands – and I will ride on to Cornwall with my mother. See, problem solved.” Mark sits back, wearing a triumphant countenance.

Kai gnaws through his third pear of the morning. “And how long would we be expected to entertain young Braith?” “Only a month” answers Mark complacently. “A month.” Arthur firmly shakes his dark head. “We aren’t minders of children.” Mark feigns a shocked expression. “She’s hardly a child any more Arthur, as you well know, and any way, if you don’t want her for the whole time, you can always send her along to that Jutish she-wolf of yours.” Kai laughs into his cup of mead and a sticky sweet dribble runs down his chin. Arthur is momentarily diverted by the thought of licking it off. His brother raises his eyebrows at Mark. “That would be the same Rowena who saw through your duplicitous offer of marriage.” Mark narrows his eyes. “ A tempting plan,” Arthur interjects smoothly “ However, Rowena and her father are touring his southern province. There’s been some trouble there with one of Yorath’s petty chieftains.” “Good, that’s settled then. Braith can stay here with you two and Llud. They should arrive tomorrow or the day after. I’ll just take my gear up to your guest quarters.” And Mark happily stomps out again. Arthur is left staring open-mouthed in his wake. Kai collapses into peals of laughter. “Well, it seems that we’re getting a visitor little brother. But before that, I can only think of one way to stop you gaping in quite that fashion.” – and leaning over, he crushes his brother’s lips against his own.

“So”. Kai stretches out in the warmth of the summer sun, hands comfortably folded behind his head. He and Arthur are lying on the river bank, clad only in their breeches, drowsy and tranquil after an afternoon swim. “What does young Braith look like now? The last time I saw her she was short and plump, with two thick carroty plaits and a smattering of freckles.” Arthur chuckles and turns his head from where it rests on his brother’s flat tawny stomach to whisper a kiss across Kai’s navel. “Then I think you’re in for quite a surprise Kai my heart. She’s, shall we say, a little more developed now.” Kai gives an answering guffaw. “Arthur, if you noticed that there were changes in her, then they must have been quite dramatic. I’m looking forward to viewing them.” Arthur rolls over so that he is face to face with his brother. “You do understand, that despite all his bluster, Mark will attempt to protect his sister as if she were a vestal.” Kai grins wickedly and then suddenly looks serious. “Honestly, little brother, I don’t believe I will notice much about Braith after all.” He strokes a finger tenderly down Arthur’s cheek. “I think I may actually be far too deeply in love to notice much else that exists in this world besides you.” His hand, stroking more firmly now, reaches the base of Arthur’s throat and then one sun- dappled nipple. Arthur’s innards turn to water and satiated with love, he begins to unlace Kai’s breeches.

Mark is quite accurate in his prediction about the visitors’ arrival. At noon the next day they ride in, with a party of attendants. Llud strides out to greet them. Looking at Mark’s mother Lia always makes his breath catch sharply in his throat. She is not exactly a replica of Arthur’s mother Vala – Vala had been more fine-boned and ethereal – but they share the same silky black hair, beautiful blue eyes and dimpled chin. It is more than enough to briefly rekindle forbidden fires in the hoary warrior’s heart….. “Llud”. Lia gives a cry of delight and dismounts into his arms. “It is so good to be with you again.” Llud fondly kisses her cheek. “As lovely as ever I see Lia.” “And you’re still as skilled at flattery.” Lia’s face lights up as she sees her son ambling toward her, followed by Arthur and she hurries toward them to share her news. In a stately fashion, her daughter Braith knees her horse forward. Willowy and tall for a woman, with skin the colour of new milk and a mass of satiny thick chestnut hair, she sits, looking around Arthur’s village with a slightly disdainful expression. And it is just at that moment that Kai comes hurtling around the side of the longhouse, golden hair all tousled, grinning wildly, clad in royal purple shirt and tight black breeches. Braith gazes down at the handsome Saxon, excitedly talking to her mother – and promptly falls in love.

At first Arthur is merely amused by the situation. After Lia has stayed a day and then ridden south with Mark, Braith is left behind in the female guest quarters for them to entertain - and it is immediately apparent what has happened to his cousin’s heart. In fact, Arthur is amazed that Kai takes three or four days to realise the way that the wind is blowing with young Braith – especially as she is so nubile and vivacious and is constantly contriving to be wherever Kai is. Leni’s thunderous face could also have been a useful clue if Kai had been more generally observant.

As it is, on the fourth night Arthur crawls into his brother’s bed when he is sure that Llud is soundly sleeping. Tenderly he sips and sucks Kai’s earlobe. “Big brother” he whispers, “I have to tell you something…..” and gets no further as he feels Kai’s hand slip inside his breeches and gently begin to manhandle his balls. So it is quite a while later, after there has been much strenuous biting of sheepskin and furtive stifling of laughter, that Arthur is finally able to ask Kai if he has noticed Braith’s preoccupation with him. In the moonlight Kai’s replete brown eyes widen. “You mean that Braith has…..for me?” Arthur nods. “Sometimes, Kai my heart, you can be as blind in your own way as poor King Athel. We’ll just have to be careful though. If Braith sets her mind to something she can be rather formidable.” (now, where have I encountered that family trait before? thinks Kai wryly to himself). “And, big brother, it seems that she has set her mind on you. It could get rather awkward if Mark decides that what Braith wants, Braith should be able to have.” Kai thoughtfully chews his lip. “Yes – despite Mark’s claims that Braith is a thorn in his flesh, he would take it as an insult if I refused her advances. And she is the daughter of one king and the sister of another. I don’t think somehow that she’s going to be as compliant as your Rowena.” (Rowena? Compliant? Arthur chuckles inwardly but says nothing). “She would really expect me to marry her sooner rather than later” Kai concludes. Arthur sighs and settles his black head more comfortably into the crook of Kai’s shoulder. “We’ll just have to think of something fairly quickly.” But nothing feasible occurs to either of them before dawn, when Arthur gives his brother a fiery kiss and slips back to his own bed just as Llud starts snuffling awake……

The following afternoon, Arthur is preparing to take his cousin riding through the river valley when Dirk arrives with a request for a meeting concerning reinforcements in his eastern territory. Llud has already gone out with a work party into the woods so when Braith looks as if she about to stamp her neatly booted foot in frustration it leaves only – Kai. Arthur can tell that his brother is reluctant to undertake such a peril-fraught mission after last night’s revelation, but Dirk is already squinting furiously and chafing at the bit. So it is that, within a very short time, Kai finds himself utterly alone with a delighted hotly blushing Braith in an utterly romantic green and leafy forest glade.

Undoubtedly she is very beautiful and under other circumstances, Kai could well have been sufficiently flattered by her attentions to attempt at least some serious flirtations with her – but she is Mark’s sister…….. And now she has brought her horse so close to his that their knees are uncomfortably wedged together. Braith flings back her coppery-brown rippling hair. “I’m so glad that Arthur was called away to other duties. Oh I know that when he visited our village recently that most of the girls there went quite silly over him. But although he means well, my cousin can be a little too practical and quite frankly dull sometimes. Don’t you often find him so?” Kai earnestly disagrees as wonderful visions of last night’s surreptitious activities dance in his head. “No, not that I can recall…..And now I think that we should ride back up to…..He stops suddenly as Braith wheels her horse around and directly into his path. Her determined green eyes look intently into his startled brown ones.

“Kai, I would speak plain. In the six years since you last rode north with Arthur, I have been occupied with one important matter – growing up. I hope you’ve noticed that I seem to have undergone quite a few telling changes - all for the better. So now that I am a woman and know a woman’s ways, I think that there is something that I should show you………… Quickly, before Kai can guess what she is about, Braith darts forward and presses her lips against his. He feels her wet eager tongue attempting to force his mouth open. Gently but firmly, Kai takes her forearms in his hands and pushes her away. Braith looks at him in affronted consternation and then he sees those limpid jade-coloured eyes simultaneously glisten with tears and harden in anger. Wracked by furious sobs, she savagely knees her horse and crashes off into the forest. Kai sighs and gallops off in pursuit. With intense relief, he sees that Braith is racing along the river path back to the village and, aware that she possesses the agility of all her family on horseback, he pulls his horse back to a canter. By the time Kai arrives home, her horse is idling in front of the longhouse and of Braith, there is no sign. He is less relieved however, when that night, Llud grimly informs him and Arthur that Braith has despatched a messenger to her brother in Cornwall.

Part Two

“What in the name of Apollo are we going to do now?” Arthur chews on his thumb nail in frustration. He and Kai are in Leni’s hut, waiting to collect some new vats of horse liniment to be stored in the stables. They have not seen Braith for the last two days – she has claimed female indisposition and remained immured in the female guest quarters – and Mark will no doubt be thundering in tomorrow, roaring for an explanation. Kai is standing behind his brother, abstractedly playing with strands of Arthur’s thick dark hair, running them tenderly through his fingers. Leni hardly notices this sort of thing any more – she is quite used to it after the last several years. With finality, she presses the wax seal around the last liniment jar. Then she turns toward them and begins to furiously sign. ‘What you really need is another girl who is willing to act as Kai’s betrothed. He can’t possibly marry Braith if he’s already promised in marriage - and that was obviously why he rebuffed her. ”

Arthur’s blue eyes light up. “Clever girl Leni. That would work.” He and Leni beam at each other, but Kai still looks concerned. “Yes, it is an idea with merit. However, where would I find a girl ready to do that all of a sudden? I don’t think that even Leesa would consent……” Leni throws her hands heavenward in utter despair. “What am I for Minerva’s sake - a goat? Me of course……” Arthur and Kai’s eyes meet in gleeful collusion.

“You and Leni?” Mark is clearly astounded. At the longhouse table, Leni sits on Kai’s lap, her ebony head nestled just below his breast bone. She looks exactly as if she has always been there – that it is her accustomed place. Mark still looks distinctly dissatisfied. “And when exactly did this betrothal come about?” Llud smiles benevolently from where he is standing behind his elder son and the village’s complacent little healer. “When Kai was fourteen and Leni twelve. It was a private matter, arranged between Leni’s mother Ana and myself.” At the head of the table, Arthur bites his lip so hard that he is afraid that he will draw blood. He turns to face Mark and spreads his hands, praying that he can keep his laughter under control. “Kai would have explained all this to Braith but she didn’t give him a chance. We haven’t seen her since she sent for you so there’s been no opportunity at all to set matters right.” Mark sighs heavily and lumbers to his feet. “Alright then, I suppose that I will just have to try and speak some sense into her. I wish now that I had bought our mother with me. ” He scrutinizes Kai thoughtfully. “So when will the wedding take place?” Kai grins and gives Leni an extravagant kiss on the mouth. “Oh, Leni’s not in any hurry. I’m happy to wait until she’s ready. But don’t worry Mark – you’ll be the first person invited to the marriage feast.” The king of Cornwall has hardly disappeared out the door before the longhouse rings with howls of irrepressible laughter. It is only as he is wiping tears of mirth away from his cheeks that Arthur notices Leni looking just like a cat who has unexpectedly been awarded the most lustrous bowl of cream……

When poor heart-broken Braith emerges from her self-imposed seclusion and her brother rides home again, there suddenly seems to be an extraordinary amount of handholding and fondling taking place around the longhouse – even if she doesn’t notice that most of it is being enthusiastically initiated by Leni and that Kai is veering between looking bemused and stunned . When she passes Kai and Leni, entwined for at least the fifth time, behind the stables, Braith bursts into hot angry tears of humiliation and rushes off to Arthur. He comes to find them an hour later in the healer’s hut, where Leni is innocuously skinning a hare, while Kai lounges beside the fire with a cup of mead. Arthur looks at his brother in amusement. “Well, you’ve certainly convinced Braith that you are well and truly betrothed.” Arthur’s gaze travels musingly up to Leni who contrives to look at him with wide perfectly innocent eyes. “ I hope its been enjoyable, but I’d still like to do something else to make amends to Braith. I’m fond of her and Lia. I wouldn’t want her to go home unhappy.” Leni wipes her bloody hands on her apron so she can sign. “What she needs is someone to make her forget Kai.” Pondering, Kai looks at his brother and then at Leni. “Doesn’t Corin arrive the day after tomorrow?” His brown eyes twinkle meaningfully. They smile conspiratorially at each other while Leni’s quick fingers fly. “And even Mark should be satisfied, since Corin is a chieftain…..”

In the end is all happens suspiciously easy – leaving Llud to reflect that Braith has just been a girl ripe for falling in love all along. There is no doubt that Corin is a personable and friendly young man – and no doubt ripe for falling in love himself. Especially with a young woman as bewitching and engaging as Braith. By the end of the first week, when Corin is supposed to be returning home, they are furtively clutching hands under cover of the longhouse table during meals – and Corin is arranging to extend his visit, explaining that it will be good experience for his younger brother to have command of their village for a longer period. By the end of the second week, he and Braith have graduated to far from furtive embraces and trysts – and Corin is enquiring of Arthur if he thinks that Mark and Lia will consent to a fleeting betrothal and a speedy marriage. If any of the usual occupants of the longhouse notice that Leni has been discreetly peppering Corin and Braith’s servings of food with cloves and marigold, then no-one is telling.

Finally it seems that everyone is satisfied. When Mark and Lia arrive to escort Braith back home, Lia is soon weeping tears of joy because her daughter has chosen a husband whose village is just an easy day’s ride away from her own – when she has always secretly feared that Braith would one day consent to be the wife of some far-flung king. Mark is happy to give his approval to a marriage that will also provide him with a strong ally and a bulwark against the Picts. And Braith and Corin simply wander around glowing in a haze of enchantment. Although by the time the northern-bound party is being waved off and Llud is heartily promising Mark a hunting trip into the hills for venison and boar when he passes through on his way back home to Cornwall, Arthur and Kai are almost dizzy with longing…….

It is a terrible thing to be so impatient for one’s loving father to depart the longhouse – to be so anxious for him to wrap himself in his cloak and leave for Olwen’s hut – to be so eager for the bar to at last be slammed into place across the longhouse door. “So big brother.” Arthur has his back to Kai as he fastens the door decisively for the night and douses the candles along the far wall. “How has it been being betrothed to Leni?” “Very very nice actually. She’s an amazingly spirited girl.” Kai’s voice is oddly muffled. “Although, you should know - as I recall, it was you and her in the stables last Yuletide who….” Arthur laughs. “Yes, after far too much mead on both sides….” and then he turns and suddenly finds it impossible to breath. Kai is standing completely naked in the flickering fire light, golden and glorious and radiantly grinning. His magnificent cock is copiously erect and his brown eyes are shining with invitation and love. So that was why his voice had been muffled……. In a few breakneck strides, Arthur is across the room, flinging off his own clothing as he advances – and then Kai is on him like a winter flood………..

In their haste to be left alone, Arthur had told Leni to leave the cleaning up until the next day and go back to her hut early – which she had duly done, smiling knowingly to herself as she flitted home through the darkness. So now when Arthur lands on the longhouse table it is into the midst of a wonderful sticky wreckage - chicken grease, honeyed mead, flattened bread, fragrant strawberries and mashed grapes. Smiling joyfully, Kai climbs on to the table at his brother’s feet and begins softly kissing the back of his ankles, tickling his calves, blowing whispers along the back of his knees. Arthur sighs in ecstasy. Slowly, Kai brings his brother’s foot up to his mouth, lavishly sucking each of Arthur’s toes, gently massaging the base of his foot. Then he tenderly stokes his brother’s thighs, dispensing fierce and teasing caresses, lingering in the pliant crevice beside Arthur’s exuberant hardness.

In turn Arthur slides his hand down to Kai’s balls, gently taking them in his fingers, gradually enticing them downwards away from his shaft and spooling them up the underside of his prick. Kai’s rigid cock begins to drip a musky-scented, aromatic aphrodisiac that Arthur hungrily takes on to his tongue. Lovingly he cradles his brother’s hardness in both hands, fingers lightly touching the sides of the shaft as if holding a minstrel’s horn – and teasingly pulls on the golden thistledown spouting from his balls. Kai’s jubilant brown eyes look levelly into his brother’s elated blue pair.

Sensing that it is virtually time, Arthur draws Kai’s face toward him, imprints his mouth with his own, turns on to his side amid the chaotic jetsam of the longhouse table. He feels Kai moisten his opening with something dewy and sweet – and the exquisite rapture of feeling his brother’s cock head slipping inside him. Kai stops and holds it there for a few endless intoxicating moments – then slides his hefty shaft further in, wholly in, moving in long luxurious strokes. At the same time he fervidly fondles Arthur’s hardness, kneading and cosseting with his slippery finger tips. Simultaneously, their bodies explode in a mass of euphoria, writhing to a primal rhythm, each throbbing bringing with it a new frenetic thrashing, falling faster and deeper down into pure atavistic exaltation………………

Leni scowls as she trudges up toward the longhouse just after dawn. She is feeling less charitable this morning. She should have insisted that she be permitted to clean up the night before. Now she will have to scour the table as well as prepare the breakfast. Sighing heavily, Leni pushes open the door – and then gasps in surprise. The main room of the long house is remarkably immaculate – the table freshly scrubbed, all the food scraps from last night’s meal removed, the wooden bowls and mead cups neatly stacked to one side. Kai grins at her from the hearth as he rubs his damp hair with a woollen cloth. ‘Good morning, my little doe. We thought you didn’t deserve to be greeted by such disarray so we tidied up.” Leni slits her eyes suspiciously, as Arthur emerges from the bedroom, dark hair also still wet, smiling dreamily. She looks at the huge pot tranquilly bubbling over the fire. So they have needed to bathe…………and shakes her head in amusement. Some things are best left unnamed……………

At noon, after a morning spent working in the forge, Arthur, Kai and Llud sit outside to eat their midday meal in the summer sun. Llud soon decides that he needs another jug of mead and strides off to fetch one. “It’s thirsty work in this heat” he calls back over his shoulder to his sons. Arthur smiles contentedly at his brother. “ My Kai, do you really know how much I love you ?” Kai stretches his wonderfully aching body in the sun. “Oh I think so Arthur. It’s just as infinitely as I love you.” And he gives the beautiful grin that embraces his brother’s heart.


End file.
